Editor of Intellectual History @libertarianism in the @CatoInstitute. Host of @PortraitsPod a podcast about libertarian history. Irish living in DC
District of Columbia, USA
Joined August 2018
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Paul Meany retweeted
Government benefits are never free. When politicians promise help to one group, someone else pays the bill.
In William Graham Sumner’s famous example, A and B decide to help X—but they make C pay. Politics focuses on who gets the benefit. Sumner reminds us to ask: Who pays for it?
Learn more from Cato’s @PaulMeany2:
ow.ly/XjM550ZBCE4
Paul Meany retweeted
Every government benefit has a recipient, but it also has a payer.
Politics encourages us to focus on the first and forget the second. In 1883, sociologist and political economist William Graham Sumner called that payer the Forgotten Man.
Cato's @PaulMeany2 explains why his insight is as relevant as ever:
ow.ly/v7hO50ZBCwK
Paul Meany retweeted
Wealth redistribution doesn't just move money. It moves power from individuals to the state, giving politicians greater control over who pays, who receives, and how resources are used.
The question is, how much power should the state wield? says Cato’s @PaulMeany2.
Learn more: ow.ly/gZuL50ZBCTr
Paul Meany retweeted
🚨Event Alert!!🚨
Join leading scholars, historians, and policymakers on September 24 to explore how American financial markets became the envy of the world, fueled prosperity, and Washington's role in sustaining them.
Register here cato.org/events/money-market…
Paul Meany retweeted
incredibly happy to report I'm joining @sci_works!
@Lyan82 and @ersatzben have put together a great team of people who care deeply about accelerating progress in British science and tech, while building the institutions needed to make it all happen
very bullish on it 🥳💙
Paul Meany retweeted
Robert Heinlein's 1966 novel "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" mirrors today's anxieties—AI, space colonization, fertility, distant control. Cato’s @PaulMeany2 argues its real insight is that these are old fears in new clothes, echoing the politics of the American Revolution.
Full essay: ow.ly/QfU950Zn1Ii
The best way to describe Heinlein's the Moon is A Harsh Mistress is to imagine if the Founding Fathers were on the moon and had a supercharged version of Chat GPT to fight the British.
cato.org/blog/no-free-lunch-…
Paul Meany retweeted
For the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Lilah Kimble reflects on the American Founders’ courage to risk their lives for their commitment to liberty. She asks if, even in less significant moments, we have the courage to protect our principles and live in accordance with our beliefs. Read the new essay here: libertarianism.org/articles/…
Paul Meany retweeted
Libertarianism begins and ends with self-ownership. Today we remember what it costs to secure it.
The Declaration of Arbroath is a really good example of how the medieval world rarely fits the caricature of the tyrannical monarch. Most monarchs had limited central power and could be easily removed.
Read more
libertarianism.org/articles/…
“If one minute’s freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it.” -Elizabeth Freeman
libertarianism.org/articles/…
Paul Meany retweeted
Liberalism is not exclusively Western.
One of its Muslim advocates was the great Ottoman intellectual Namık Kemal, whose passion for “hürriyet,” or liberty, led to constitutionalism.
I talked about his life and legacy with @PaulMeany2 at @libertarianism:
libertarianism.org/podcasts/…
Paul Meany retweeted
NEW BOOK RELEASE!
Written by @TimothySandefur, Freedom's Furies tells the story of Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand. Three women who kept liberty alive in a dark time.
You can read it online for free with the link below!
libertarianism.org/books/fre…
Paul Meany retweeted
LIVE TODAY AT 3PM ET: “Black Liberation through the Marketplace: Hope, Heartbreak, and the Promise of America,” with @LibertyEthics, @MarcusWitcher, @AmeshiaCross and @PaulMeany2.
WATCH: bit.ly/3xwar5h
Join the conversation using #CatoEvents
Paul Meany retweeted
Portraits of Liberty is back!
Our first episode in a while covers the life of Itagaki Taisuke, the samurai who became the leader of the Japanese Freedom and People's Rights Movement.
libertarianism.org/podcasts/…
